OH MY GOD MY XJ IS GOING TO RIPP ITSELF APART!!!

recently i have bought a 97 xj. I took it out a few times to test drive and everything was good so i bought it.Loaded, 64,000 miles on it for $2000. Now i think i know why i got it so cheap. Got on the freeway to go to work one night and around 50-55 mph it started to VIOLENTLY SHAKE INSANELY!!!!. It scared the zannoes out of me. I let off the gas and slowed down. So now i cant drive it past 45. I can feel it wants to start doing it again, lingering evil when ever driving it.

Luckily i already had a doner xj to swap t-case from 242 to 231 and both complete front and rear axles with 4.56 and the 5.5 RE XD kit. and slip yoke e kit with new drive shaft. I even replaced the drag link and tierod. Brand new 33x12.50 mounted and ballanced and allighnment. I had the steering box at jeep checked and they said it was fine. The crazy violent shakes are gone, but feel like they r coming back slowly but surely. Everything looks good and feels good while checking for play in everything/track bar ect while stationary.
Could it be frame damage?
What do i do?
has anyone ever had this happen before?
MY JEEP IS POSESSED!!!!!

search terms "death wobble"
its a number of factors

Its your tires/wheels when it happens at 50-55mph.

You need to get your tires balanced and check for an "out of round" tire. I had the exact same thing on my old 2000 and it took me forever to figure it out. It would happend at 50-55 mph like your saying. You either drive 45 or over 60, lol.

The feeling that the DW is slowly sneaking back up on you is a by-product of how badly it scared you. Try to forget.
The cause is usually several little things working together to build the imbalance to the point where it takes on a life of its own. You won't often be able to detect any play by feeling things with the vehicle sitting stationary. The best technique for visualizing any play in steering components or track bar components is to have someone sit in the Jeep with it running and turn the wheel back and forth while you watch and feel the pieces for any play. Remind your friend to leave it in park and not run over you, by the way!
Swapping tire/rim combos front to back can help in finding if one of them is out-of-round or out-of-true.

JEEPTUBE said:

recently i have bought a 97 xj. I took it out a few times to test drive and everything was good so i bought it.Loaded, 64,000 miles on it for $2000. Now i think i know why i got it so cheap. Got on the freeway to go to work one night and around 50-55 mph it started to VIOLENTLY SHAKE INSANELY!!!!. It scared the zannoes out of me. I let off the gas and slowed down. So now i cant drive it past 45. I can feel it wants to start doing it again, lingering evil when ever driving it.

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This happened to me once about four years ago and my pants turned brown I can tell you. My XJ is a '92 with no lift and high performance street tires. The cause was a bad steering damper so you might wanna check that out.

Steering stabilizers do not cause or cure death wobble. If you want to find the real culprit, take the stabilizer completely off so it does not mask the death wobble.

ZachMan said:

Its your tires/wheels when it happens at 50-55mph.

You need to get your tires balanced and check for an "out of round" tire. I had the exact same thing on my old 2000 and it took me forever to figure it out. It would happend at 50-55 mph like your saying. You either drive 45 or over 60, lol.

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just because thats what you experienced that doesn't mean that it applies to everybody else .it could be anything from worn out control arm bushings to ball joints.granted the tires being slightly out of balance could start the problem but that doesn't rule out the fact it could be something else

GottaBeJeep said:

Steering stabilizers do not cause or cure death wobble. If you want to find the real culprit, take the stabilizer completely off so it does not mask the death wobble.

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X2 on that......got i so hate steering stabilizers....why do people constantly think that they are a cure it all...... they are called stabilizers to help "STABILIZE" steering SITUATIONS, not worn parts or other problems.......they are not called "problem maskers"........if you don't have any vibs or other problems you should be able to drive without a steering stabilizer......if you need one to "fix" your problem, then all you are doing is cover something up.....FIX IT, DON'T HIDE IT.


i sure hope you swapped all those parts because you wanted to anyways, and not just because of some vibration...........that's a lotta work for a bad tire balance or some loose/bad steering components.

1)check all steering components for wear, slack other anything else un-usual,
2)have your tires balanced properly and check them for any defects....you could have a bad tire, or a wheel that is badly bend and may or may not try to fight a balance.
3)check your ball joints
4)remove the steering stabilizer once you "think" you've solved the problem....if you can drive without the steering stabilizer and still not have problems, then you have PROPERLY fixed the problem.....re-install stabilizer and enjoy your ride.

scorpio_vette said:

X2 on that......got i so hate steering stabilizers....why do people constantly think that they are a cure it all......

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Because a bad or missing stabilizer can be a major contributor to death wobble? The steering design on the XJ is maginally stable even when everything is new and tight. If you've lifted, have some mildly worn parts, imperfect tires, etc then a functioning stablizer is a requirement. I'm not saying that there are never other contributing issues and that you shouldn't check for worn parts, but quite often just replacing the stablizer will make the problem go away. All you need to do is search the forums to see plenty of examples where replacing the stablizer solved a death wobble problem.

BTW, I resolved my death wobble about 4 years ago by replacing the steering stablizer. The original one had no resistance at all.

lawsoncl said:

All you need to do is search the forums to see plenty of examples where replacing the stablizer solved a death wobble problem.

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And you will see many suckers as well.

Stabilizers are just shocks that absorb bumps to the steering system. Like your suspension shocks, they absorb the bumps, but they don't make the potholes go away. You need to fix the real problem, which in many cases is a combination of several worn, loose or broken parts. Bad stabilizers, out of balance/round tires and wheels, and poor alignment don't cause death wobble, they just start a chain reaction that make the worn parts causing the death wobble more obvious that there is a problem.

Bad information is like a virus, you can fight it all day long, but someone will always carry it and spread it again.

No one mentioned Unit Bearings. Mine were shot. Your's may be too.

BTW, I resolved my death wobble about 4 years ago by replacing the steering stablizer. The original one had no resistance at all

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and I on the other hand have never succesfully masked a proplem with a stabilizer.....i even tried bigger/heavier stabilizers and was never happy with the results.......personally i just put my stabilizer on cuz i like the red boots.

x3.......

my trail rig didnt have a stabilizer, drove fine at 80mph, 7" lift, long arms, crossover..... sounds modified to me, i must of missed the "required" note.

oh yeah, and 35x16" boggers, UNbalanced, they were out 12-16oz per side....drove fine, no death wobble, thats for sure

Wil Badger said:

just because thats what you experienced that doesn't mean that it applies to everybody else .it could be anything from worn out control arm bushings to ball joints.granted the tires being slightly out of balance could start the problem but that doesn't rule out the fact it could be something else

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I've never heard different.

When it happens at 50-55 mph I have never heard someone say it was something besides tires or balancing issue. It could be a hundred different things true, but when he mentioned that certain speed I knew to chime in.

x100 on the stabilizer thing, its a bandaid

That better not be true since my new steering doesn't have a stabilizer mount, lol.

WELL I DID EVERYTHING U ALL ARE TALKING ABOUT.
BALANCED THE TIRES (THEY WERE BRAND NEW BTW)
HAD SOMEONE SIT IN DRIVER SEAT AND TURN STEERING WHEEL B AND F
I swapped dana 30 and 8.25 checked hubb ball joints ect. everything tiptop.
New drag and tierod.
Brand new ball joints.
Had the steering box inspected, everything was fine.
Ballanced the driveshafts.
I swapped the lift out with the 5.5 RE XD lift with drop brackets.
Since i put the lift kit on it signifigantly dampened the DW.
Double and triple checked everything for correct fitment and torqe on the lift.

OK, NOW ALL OF EVERYTHING THAT MY 97 XJ SITS ON, AXLES-DRIVESHAFTS, T-CASE, LIFT KIT, CAME FROM MY 92 XJ. i WILL TELL U THAT MY 92 DROVE MUCH NICER AND SMOOTHER LIKE A CADDY THAN THE 97. STEERING FEEL.
I PROB HAVE FIXED THE PROBLEM WITH MY 97.
ITS JUST THAT THE INTERMEDIATE SHAFT IS DIFF.
IN THE 92 THE INTERMEDIATE SHAFT COMES OFF OF THE BOX AND STOPS AT THE FIREWALL WITH A U JOINT FIXED IN THE WALL. SO ALL THE FEEL FROM THE ROAD IS DAMPENED AT THE WALL.
BUT IN THE 97 MY INTERMEDIATE SHAFT COMES FROM THE BOX AND GOES THROUGH THE WALL. I FEEL A WHOLE LOT MORE.
SO MAYBE NOW THAT I HAVE FIXED THE DW-MY HANDS ARE JUST FEELING ROAD FROM THE NEW INTERMEDIATE SHAFT IN THE 97.
BY THE WAY U ARE RIGHT GOTTA BE JEEP-THE STEERING STABLIZER IS NOT THE CULPRIT.
BUT I PUT A BRAND NEW ONE ON ANYWAY.

just a question...is your trac bar adjusted right to where your axle is centerd under the jeep?

GottaBeJeep said:

And you will see many suckers as well.

Stabilizers are just shocks that absorb bumps to the steering system. Like your suspension shocks, they absorb the bumps, but they don't make the potholes go away. You need to fix the real problem, which in many cases is a combination of several worn, loose or broken parts. Bad stabilizers, out of balance/round tires and wheels, and poor alignment don't cause death wobble, they just start a chain reaction that make the worn parts causing the death wobble more obvious that there is a problem.

Bad information is like a virus, you can fight it all day long, but someone will always carry it and spread it again.

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It's not that simple.

From a mechanical engineering point of view, the front suspension is a dynamic system with multiple degrees of freedom. It has a natural frequency and a resonance. The natural frequency is determined by the overall stiffness of the system. How big the resonance can get is determined by driving forces and the damping within the system. Driving forces are steering input, road forces on the wheels (affected by alignment), potholes, etc. Damping in the system comes from the tires, shocks and the steering stablizer. Lose or worn parts represent non-linearities which complicate things even further and generally reduce the effectiveness of dampening and lower the resonance frequency.

The system is going to have a resonance no matter what you do to it. The question is whether the resonance is a mild controlled shake when you hit a pot hole that quickly dissipates, called a damped or stable system. Or whether the oscillations will grow, which is an underdamped or unstable system.

Before you go spouting off and accusing me of being a sucker and spreading bad info, please note that I am NOT claiming replacing the stabilizer is a cure-all or even required on all setups. I am saying that some setups due to slightly worn parts, larger tires, heavier vehicle, or modifications that change the link geometry can need more damping to be stable. In that case, a functioning or stiffer stablizer may be all that is needed. I am recommending that if you've checked all the components already and can't find anything wrong that you should check the stabilizer.

To carry your example a bit further, shocks don't get rid of potholes or rough roads which are the driving force, but they do dampen the system so that oscillations don't become extreme. The car will bounce at the frequency determined by the spring rates. Try riding down a bumpy road in a coil-sprung car without shocks. (I say coils because leaves have friction which will dampen oscillations.) If you hit the just the right washboarding, the bouncing will grow severe enough that the car will literally bounce itself off the road. That's the function of suspension shocks.

Its not even an XJ problem!Having owned many different "live axle" vehicles over 35years,I can tell you it can happen to all.Be it leaf springs with king pins or radius arms with ball joints.Stabilzers ARE bandaids,not cures,as already said "a properly set up front doesnt need one"!

well.....i think hes low on blinker fluid. mine did that last time i didnt add more after a serious BFR (blinker fluid regulator) blowout. shook like it was posessed by the devil. i cudnt afford new blinker fluid tho, so u know what fixed it? a new STEERING STABILIZER